Andrew Gabriel: ‘New Guitar Day’

New Guitar Day

Each time I buy a new guitar it’s great
for my writing. Not that I write songs much.
What I mean is this kind of writing.
For a month or two I get lost in new
guitar smell, figures of wood. Each strum rumbles
my chest each pluck sighs in my lap.
My fingertips relearn the meaning of pain.
Why did I not practice as much when younger? Learn theory?
The older I get the longer it takes to learn new songs.
They really are worth learning but it’s just
that it takes up so much space in my head
to learn them which sends me back to words
and another guitar stays in its case as new poems writhe
impatiently waiting to be born on the page.

Andrew Gabriel